


The Blossoming Almond Tree

by Callmesalticidae, shadow_wasserson



Series: The Gods Have Horns [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Awkward questions, F/M, Godstuck, Holidays, Hot Chocolate, Stargazing, rose gets a crush, toasty fires, totally shocking revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3491351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_wasserson/pseuds/shadow_wasserson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Prince of Hope and his protégé do some stargazing. There might be a crush involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blossoming Almond Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Edits were made to Eridan's dialogue on 3/14/2015. No information content, just stylistic stuff.

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are not a disciple of the Prince of Hope. You might call yourself his prophet-in-training, if either of you were given to such wording. Or his angel, but you aren’t exactly on any of the Angel Scout membership rolls, so that could lead to some confusion.

No. Call yourself his apprentice. You think that you like the sound of that.

Tonight you are sitting in front of an open fire. The night sky is the only thing hanging over you. Eridan has taken you out to see the stars. You would have appreciated this more had he not decided to bring you to the top of the Alps in the dead of winter, but he insists that there was no other way. The Alps are a wonderful place for stargazing, hence the location is mandatory. The timing is just as important because the two of you are here to celebrate Truth Day, when followers of the Prince of Hope all over the world gather together to record the lies which they tell themselves and throw these into the fire.

Regardless, you wish that Truth Day could have been set in another month. Leo, maybe, or Cancer. Despite your best efforts, you shiver violently as the heat escapes from your small frame. You edge a bit closer to Eridan. He told you once that his body temperature is one of the lowest, among the gods. You think that he is warm enough. 

Eridan pokes at the fire with his staff. “There is hot chocolate,” he tells you.

You take the proffered thermos and drink it slowly. It is almost literally an ambrosia. It was brewed by a god, and tastes just as good. 

He shifts his position and points to another star. “Coma Berenices is risin'. See how it forms a right angle?” You nod, and he continues. “The northern part a' the Virgo Cluster, the heart a' this galaxy’s supercluster, lies in that direction.”

You sip hot chocolate as you listen, and lean into Eridan for more warmth.

“Also several globular clusters orbit there,” he continues. “Very few a' the stars in globular clusters can hold rocky planets. But there are species that have colonized them with orbital habitats. I don't recommend doin' that. It takes a lot of resources. And for not much reward,” he adds.

“What would be their reason for doing it then? I would think that their minds might simply be too alien for my own to comprehend their motives, but  _you_  have a remarkably human psychology— or else ours is remarkably divine— and the possibility that this would occur just by chance seems absurd.”

“Various reasons, most a' which are irrational. The Inn’in’inn, for example, thought that no star system should be without intelligent habitation, no matter how difficult to establish. They suffered heavy colony mortality, but the sheer number a' attempts ensured occasional success. I guess if you're goin' to roll the dice at all, figuratively, mind, it is best to roll more than once.”

“I see. You referred to them in the past tense,” you note.

“Sharp ears. That's right, there are none left. They died out half a billion years ago.”

You look away from Eridan, but still toward the sky. “You didn’t come here from nowhere. What was your world like?” What books were written there, you wonder, and what stories told? How did they think? Who was their Sigmund Freud, their Viktor Frankl? What were the people like?

He pauses. A sigh escapes him, not through his mouth but through his gills. “Depends on what you mean by that,” he finally says. “I could go on at length about my world's history and science, or its climate, or its geography, but is that really what you are askin'?”

You shrink back a little. “I had not actually arrived at a specific set of inquiries yet. However, I would be interested in knowing more about _something_. On the other hand, judging from your expression and lack of response, I take it that you do not wish to discuss the matter.” You train your vision on the stars. “I suppose that I can relate to that.” You’ve spent a considerable amount of your time avoiding your mother and any deep discussion about her. Perhaps there are things on his world that Eridan prefers to have left behind.

“It is not high on my to-do list, and I doubt it would be helpful for you to know. That world is gone. What few lessons you could learn from its existent are not relevant at this time. If it comes up, Rose, you will be the first to know.”

You nod, feeling as if you had stepped on something that you shouldn’t have. As if you had broken an urn, perhaps, though you don’t know why that image would come up. “Thank you for taking me out here.” You lean against Eridan again.

“It's no trouble.” He pokes at the fire again. The staff, though it certainly looks like it is made out of wood, does not burn or even singe.

“How many worlds have you seen?”

He pauses. “Hm. I don't keep count. Many billions. In this galaxy alone there are hundreds of billions of stars. Though a' course not all of them are inhabited. Much as the Inn’in’inn might have tried.”

“But I’ve seen you almost every day, and there are reports of your presence, if not daily, then at least monthly, somewhere on Earth. Why do you spend so much time here, when there are so many varied worlds out there? Surely it can’t be just because your sign is written out in the stars of our sky.”

“No, a' course not. Perhaps I’ve simply become a hivebody in my old age, but it is pleasant to call one world home, instead a' staying continually on the move. The choice was kind a' arbitrary, and maybe there were better ones, or equally good. But I don’t think this was a bad decision, overall. The stars, as you say, are a special touch.” He pokes the fire again, making sparks sizzle. “Rose, do you have your papers ready? I think this fire is as large as it’s gonna get in this weather.”

“Um. Yes.” You take a folded slip of paper in your hand. The ink does not bleed through, but you know that  _he_  knows what is on the paper. He hears every lie you tell yourself, and he surely noticed when one of them vanished. Written on the slip, in neat cursive words, is the sentence “I am okay.”

You take a breath and throw it into the fire.

No more lies.

Eridan holds up his own piece of paper and tosses it in. Both of them burn quickly, leaving nothing behind.

You wish that you could ask, but that isn’t really… Oh, blast it, you’ll stage it as a rhetorical question that doesn’t mandate answering. “What kind of lies could a god of truth be telling himself? After all of this time I would have expected you to be through with that.”

Eridan continues to look at the fire. His expression does not change at all. “There are always more lies, Rose Lalonde. Nothin' is new under the stars nor above them, not even the sheer number a' lies that livin' creatures can tell themselves. It's annoyin'.” He cocks his head to the side. “I have passed through fire and deep water, since my lies and I first parted. I have forgotten much that I thought I knew, and learned again much that I had forgotten.”

You frown. And then you  _stare_. “That’s  _The Lord of the Rings_. That’s Gandalf.”

Eridan actually smiles. Only very slightly, but it is still unusual enough for you to take note of it. “Well, they do call me the White.”

“B-But what happened to ‘Magic isn’t real and wizards are silly’? How many times have you told me that?”

“They are silly, and nonsense, and not real,” Eridan agrees. He interlaces his fingers in front of his face. “And I suppose none a' that precludes a certain fondness for them.”

“You… You, I don’t have any words. I am at a complete loss for words. You bastard!”

You’re smiling, though, which kind of takes away from your words.

“Well, it is Truth Day, isn’t it? So now I'm comin' clean. A bastard and a wizard lover, what a combination. I wouldn’t be surprised if you left right this minute.”

You laugh softly. “And walk down the Alps all by myself, in the dead of winter? You sure know how to treat a lady right.” You settle yourself against Eridan again, still chuckling. “You should marry my mother with that obsession of yours. Just. Um. Don’t.” The idea is undesirable for a number of reasons. How disturbing it would be is only the first of them.

“I should not marry your mother, that is a ridiculous idea. I am not even flushed for her. Never have been, for a human.”

“Oh.” You laugh, feeling light, even giddy. Like you've dodged a bullet. “Are you sure that you won’t be tossing that into the fire next Truth Day?”

“One can only hope I won’t be.”

“Truly you are a wellspring of comedic genius." 

Inside, you can’t help but take heart a little from that. The Prince of Hope destroys his namesake. All the texts agree on that. He’s the one that leaves you with ashes in your hands, because all your hopes were founded on sand. But maybe that’s good. Because if it’s a  _hope_ that he’ll never feel flushed for a human, well…

You can’t deny it. Lying to yourself would only let him know, like throwing cold water on his head and banging a gong next to his ear. He’d just  _know_ , and you’d be as transparent as glass. So you have to come clean with yourself, if nobody else. And it is perfectly understandable for a young girl such as yourself, in a context such as this. Nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about— or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself.

You’re crushing on Eridan. Really  _badly_. Like, you want to take to him like your mother does to the bottle. And all this wizard business that you just found out about is  _so_  not helping.

Well, maybe he’ll come around. Maybe he’ll come around someday…

 **Epilogue:**  Several years from now, you will ask him what he threw in the fire on that very first Truth Day that you shared together. He will not tell you. Not until you are seventeen. It will seem like every other Truth Day but then, without warning, he will remove his eyes from the stars and tell you what he had written so long ago.

“I will not miss Earth.”


End file.
